STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rev. Joseph Mostardi was watching TV in Ocean City, New Jersey, when he saw Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected as Pope Leo XIV — a man he’s known as a friend for over 30 years.
“I was stunned. I couldn’t believe I heard his name read out loud in Latin,” Father Mostardi told the Advance/SILive.com. “We knew it was a possibility, but those of us who have known him never really thought it was going to happen — it was almost like a fairy tale when he walked out on the balcony.”
“My phone blew up and I must have had a hundred text messages from all over the United States and Italy,” he said.
Father Mostardi, 75, the former pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel R.C. Church in Tompkinsville, now serves at Our Mother of Good Counsel R.C. Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He described how the two crossed paths many times as both students at Villanova University and priests within the St. Augustine order…